Even though the United States is typically perceived as a monolingual country with little interest in languages other than English, nearly one half of the estimated ten billion-dollar worldwide translation market is spent in the United States. English is just one of nearly 7,000 languages currently spoken around the world, and, contrary to popular belief, it is not the most widely spoken language. There are twice as many native speakers of Chinese as there are of English.

In the United States, the translation profession faces the same hurdles it faces in China and elsewhere in the world: it is not viewed as a "profession" in the true sense of the word, because the translation industry lacks regulation and practically anyone who speaks more than one language can become a "translator." As you well know, translation is an art that requires lot more than familiarity with another language. To separate professional translators from "wannabe" translators, a regulatory framework is needed which signals to the users of translation services that their translation was done professionally.

Let us look at the current situation in the United States. There are an estimated 3,000 translation companies; as for the number of individual translators and interpreters, there are no reliable data, because many freelancers have other jobs as well and do not identify themselves as translators or interpreters. In any case, there are tens of thousands people in the United States who are active in the translation and interpretation profession. There are several professional associations for translators and interpreters, as well as academic programs and government organizations.

By far the largest professional association is the ATA, or American Translators Association, and I will talk about the ATA in a minute. Other associations include NAJIT – National Association of Judiciary Translators and Interpreters – with more than 1,000 individual members, and ALC – Association of Language Companies – with about 100 corporate members. There are no formal ties between these organizations, but there is significant overlap in membership. Each of these organizations serves a different purpose and attracts individuals and companies with specific needs.

The American Translators Association is an organization of nearly 10,000 members in more than 70 countries – including China – who speak more than 100 languages. We bring together translators and interpreters, language service companies, educators, and government representatives, thus covering the entire spectrum of the profession.

Our primary goals are fostering and supporting the professional development of translators and interpreters and promoting the translation and interpreting profession. In fulfilling those goals we seek to educate potential clients about buying our services and bring them together with qualified translators and interpreters who can get the job done right. We are reaching out to the business community and talking to them about the benefits of good translation and interpretation and how to get it. As part of that effort, we have published a brochure called Translation, Getting it Right with tips on how to improve the chances of a buying good translation, and we are planning to produce a similar guide to buying interpreting services.

The American Translators Association offers a vast array of professional development opportunities, which also serve as networking opportunities. These include our annual conference, which draws around 1600 attendees, as well as a number of seminars throughout the year.

Our website – atanet.org – includes an online database of over 5500 freelance translators and interpreters, including their areas of expertise, and an on-line database of almost 400 translation companies. We have a school outreach program that provides materials and encourages our members to speak to high school and college students about careers in translating and interpreting, in an effort to increase the number of potential professional translators and interpreters, while at the same time educating the next generation of the buyers of translation and interpretation services.

Now let us look at what role these and other organizations play in the regulation of the translation and interpreting industry in the United States. The already-mentioned NAJIT offers certification for translators and interpreters in the legal arena, currently in Spanish only. This certification is not mandatory; it simply indicates that the given individual has passed a rigorous test and that he or she is qualified to translate legal documents or interpret in legal settings that do not require government-sponsored certification for court interpreters.

This brings me to the only regulation in the United States that is mandatory, and that is state and federal certification for court interpreters. The Federal Court Interpreter Certification Program is administered under contract from the Administrative Office of the United States Courts with the National Center for State Courts, in cooperation with CPS Human Resource Services and Second Language Testing, Inc. The Federal Certification is typically done for Spanish interpreters only, but certification in other languages is theoretically possible.

On the state level, similar certification exists for court interpreters. The Consortium for State Court Interpreter Certification, which currently includes 34 states, caters to the needs of individual states, depending on the immigrant population of each state. For example, southern states have a strong Spanish representation, whereas western states have a strong Chinese representation.

The best known certification in the United States is the translator certification offered by the American Translators Association. Like the NAJIT certification mentioned earlier, it is voluntary, but unlike the NAJIT certification, it is widely recognized among both corporate and government users of translation services. The certification is currently available in 27 language combinations, including English into Chinese (but not the other way around).

Certification of translators and interpreters is only a part of the regulatory framework in the United States. In addition to certification, which serves as a regulation of the translation and interpretation services providers, we can also regulate processes and products. In the United States, a quality standard defining the translation process is currently in the final stages of development. A standard for interpreting services was published several years ago. Both standards were developed by ASTM International, which is a US-based voluntary standards organization that develops and produces technical standards for materials, products, systems and services. The purpose of these standards can be summarized as follows:

• obtaining greater transparency in the marketplace: if the guidelines in the standard are used to define client requirements, translation service providers will understand what they should do and buyers will understand what they are buying
• obtaining better quality: both providers and buyers of translation services can benchmark their activities and processes against an objective standard
• market differentiation: those providers who perform their services according to the standard can use this as an advantage in the marketplace to be used when compared to providers who don't follow the standard
• increasing barriers to entry: in some cases, the existence of a standard may restrict access to some markets to those who lack the professionalism to comply with the standard
• educational tool: standards can help not only in client education, but also in the creation of curricula to train translation service providers, both for academic institutions and for training of translators and other stakeholders within private industry or government and non-profit entities
• leveling the playing field: all translation service providers can have access to the same standard and they and their clients can play by the same rules
• certification according to a standard: some buyers may see certification according to a particular standard as a seal of approval or a guarantee that a service provider delivers quality

For the product – which is the translation – there are several standards available today. What they have in common is that they provide statistical assessment of a number of errors per specified amount of text. Unlike in the previous scenarios for provider certifications and process standards, in the case of product standards it is the end user who dictates what a "quality translation" is. A US manufacturer who needs a translation simply to satisfy requirements for use in the European Union without actually planning to use any of the translated materials will have very different demands on the quality of the translation than a US importer who needs to translate and localize documentation for an imported product.

In the United States, the best known product standard is the J2450 Translation Quality Metric produced by the Society of Automotive Engineers. This standard is applicable to translations of automotive service information into any target language. The metric may be applied regardless of the source language or the method of translation, be it human translation, computer assisted translation or machine translation. The current version of the metric does not measure errors in style, making it unsuitable for evaluations of material in which style is important, such as marketing literature. I understand that a similar standard exists here in China, entitled "Target Text Quality Requirements for Translation Services". Other metrics are available as well. The American Translators Association developed its own metric which is used for the grading of certification exams, and which has been adopted by several academic programs in the United States. The already-mentioned ASTM standard can be also applied to the product, that is, the translation itself. It lists translation-specific parameters that, when given project-specific values, provide a set of specifications against which the quality of a translation can be evaluated. By adding weighted points and a threshold, an ASTM specification becomes a metric.

This has been a comprehensive overview of the regulatory framework currently in place in the United States. I believe that regulation and self-regulation of the translation and interpretation industry is important if we want to elevate the status of our profession. It seems to me that the American Translators Association and the Translator Association of China have similar objectives and I am excited to serve as the liaison between the two organizations. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to talk to you here today and I will be more than happy to share further information with you throughout the forum and to learn about the Translator Association of China and the translation and interpretation industry here.